Ken Block's 10-point plan for making mega-popular YouTube car videos.

For a generation raised on YouTube, lost in Minecraft, and baked in Snapchat, those names don’t mean anything. American kids have a hazy notion that Jeff Gordon is some old NASCAR guy and Dale Jr. sells Mountain Dew. Beyond that? Nothing.

But they know Ken Block. His six (so far) “gymkhana” rally-car mayhem videos are what fun-with-cars looks like in the age of Oculus Rift: jumping, sliding, and tire shredding mixed with goofball humor and almost subliminal marketing messages. Sometimes, not so subliminal.

The Big Bang Theory is the top-rated show on prime time. It pulls in about 18 million viewers for CBS on a good week. On its own, 2012’s Gymkhana 5—the one where Block and his 650-hp, four-wheel-drive Ford Fiesta obliterate the streets of San Francisco in clouds of tire smoke—has more than 61.4 million views on YouTube. The 2014 Daytona 500 had about 9.3 million viewers on Fox. When it comes to attracting an audience with motorsports-related content, Ken Block’s Hoonigan Racing and Hoonigan Industries are state of the art. Here’s how they do it.

1. Conspire

Each gymkhana video emerges from the hive mind of the Hoonigan collective. That’s Block, Hoonigan Industries’ creative director Brian Scotto, and video director Ben Conrad. Hoonigan is a robust enough mash-up of the Australian slang term “hoon” and hooligan that it could be trademarked. So, make that Hoonigan™.

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KEN BLOCK: The first among unequals, Block was one of the founders of DC Shoes in the early 1990s. After selling his interest, he pursued rallying with unusual success. Unusual in that he didn’t compete in his first race until 2005, when he was already 37 years old. Today, at 46, he looks at least a decade younger. “The good thing is that most people don’t know my age,” he laughs.

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BRIAN SCOTTO: Before hitching up with Block, Scotto was the founding editor of the sorely missed 0–60 magazine. “Ken is the smartest guy I’ve ever met,” says the six-foot-eight-inch-tall Scotto, 34, who spends most of his days planning products and managing the marketing. “And I’m usually the smartest guy I know in any room. Oh God, that’s going to make me sound like an asshole.”

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BEN CONRAD: The final, and least talkative, lobe of that communal brain, Conrad, 39, has directed the last three gymkhana videos. His Los Angeles–based design and production company, Logan, produces them. “Brian talks enough for all of us,” he quietly demurs.

2. Find a Sponsor

Castrol is behind the latest Hoonigan video extravaganza, “Footkhana.” BP’s lubricant brand engaged Hoonigan to leverage the popularity of the gymkhana videos alongside its endorsement investment in 22-year-old Brazilian-born football, er, soccer star Neymar Jr. Since Neymar plays forward for FC Barcelona and is such a huge international megastar that he only needs one name, it was expeditious to bring Block’s entire rally team plus the Hoonigan production conspiracy to Spain. The idea was to match freestyle bouncy-ball tricks with Block-spec tire shredding and produce something that would make the world’s youngsters aspire to fill their crankcases with Castrol Edge. Awkward logic and absurd contrivance are, after all, the soul and wit of viral marketing.

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3. Location, Location, Location

In February, the three Hoonigans were at a white-painted warehouse in Spain. Footkhana was scheduled to be shot there on a generic truck-parking pad. Surrounded by nurseries cut into terraces overlooking the Mediterranean, the concrete tarmac showed a light dusting of what seemed to be white ammonium nitrate fertilizer from the giant flower factories, scattered by sea breezes. Everything would be filmed within the confines of the parking pad, so there wasn’t much location scouting or any need to shut down streets as there was in San Francisco. And since the area was only maybe half an acre in size, security was easier than, say, shooting across the massive Universal Studios back lot in 2011 for Gymkhana 4.

There aren’t any jumps in Footkhana. Though one ramp-to-ramp over a shark may have been humorously ironic. Or wholly appropriate.

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4. Travel Light

By Hollywood studio standards, the Hoonigans operate on a shoestring. In Spain, two medium-duty box trucks filled with production equipment were parked next to a catering truck, a large American-spec fifth-wheel travel trailer, and what is likely the only Ford Expedition in Southern Europe lugging port-a-potties. Add to that a transporter for the car and a team truck to support it and that’s the whole circus.

In total there were about 35 people at the Spanish location. Roughly 15 were directly connected to the production, a couple from Castrol, two to mind us journalists, six to service the car, and about 10 guys wearing sweat suits bouncing soccer balls off their feet. Hollywood productions, by comparison, can easily employ 200 or more.

“We don’t have a lot of the equipment big movies have,” explains Scotto. “For one, we don’t have any camera cars. We shoot everything using cameras mounted to Ken’s car. There aren’t any car-to-car shots.

“People would be surprised at how little the videos cost to produce,” he said later. “Everyone assumes it costs more. But we do more and spend more every year. If I put a figure on it, we’re limiting ourselves. It’s not $2 million.”

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5. Practice Patience

Shortly after the Fiesta roared and cackled to life and headed for the pad in Spain, the tires on the punk-spec Ford became coated white from the agri-dust covering the concrete. Block made a few donuts around some obstacles, but it was obvious the car was skating atop the fertilizer. Even worse, it wasn’t making much tire smoke. A few minutes later the car was back in the warehouse. The white stuff was an insurmountable problem.

Again the Hoonigans huddled over a lunch table to consider their options. The winner was canceling the warehouse shoot and moving the next day to the nearby Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

That’s the day we journalists were scheduled to fly home. And at least that schedule would hold.

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6. Some Will Die

Dozens of GoPro Hero cameras lie on a table in neat rows. “We’ve used as many as 100 in a shoot,” Scotto would explain later. “It helps that GoPro is one of Ken’s sponsors.”

At as little as $200 each, the GoPro cameras have become the film industry’s dependable expendables, and they’re secreted away in practically every vulnerable nook and dangerous cranny of the Fiesta. Hoonigan can kill up to 25 percent of them on a shoot. “The best thing about GoPros is that you can sacrifice them,” said Conrad. “You put them directly in the line of fire and hope the chip stays in place.

“But we have to trick them a bit. We have to light the interior so the exposure is the same as outside. It’s either that or it’s just white outside the windows. We could tint the windows, but we don’t want to do that to Ken.”

In addition, Conrad usually shoots with one pro-grade Arri Alexa or Red digital ­cinema camera and several well-positioned Canon 5D digital SLRs. As various sequences are shot, the video is downloaded onto several hard drives for storage and transportation. And the remains of those GoPros that died valiantly are given a ­somber, dignified burial—in a dumpster.

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7. Power Down

The biggest difference between shooting a gymkhana video, which is essentially a sophisticated mixed-media marketing tool (i.e., commercial), and a feature film comes down to the car. On Fast & Furious 6 there were seven identical 1969 Dodge Charger Daytonas constructed for filming. If one broke, another could be brought in at a moment’s notice. And all of them were built to be reliable and only fast enough to create the cinematic appearance of speed.

In contrast, there’s only one hand-built, 650-hp, four-wheel-drive, carbon-fiber-bodied, $600,000 Ford Fiesta on hand for a gymkhana shoot. It’s not a replica of Ken Block’s race car, it’s the same high-strung and truly fast car he uses in Global RallyCross (GRC) competition. If it breaks, filming stops.

“For gymkhana, we detune it and put a smaller turbo on. So it’s a more controllable horsepower,” says Block. “I’m able to let the engine and turbo spool down.”

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8. Repeat: It’s Not “Show Friends,” It’s “Show Business”

Despite the illusion of improvisation in each of Block’s videos, they’re planned and produced in a strictly businesslike way. Everyone signs waivers, everything is insured, safety monitors hold people back from the live set, and there are air horns strategically placed to alert the crew in case of a fire or other emergencies. Hooning may be what Hoonigan sells, but it’s not what these shoots are about. This is 21st-century show business, a carefully crafted illusion, and 100 percent liability conscious.

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9. Finish What You Started

A month or so of audio and video editing and digital color balancing goes on after the shoot itself is over. “We spend so much time making sure the edits do what they’re supposed to do,” explains Conrad, “which creates drama and energy and speed.”

But the sound almost matters more. “Much of the drama and emotion come from the audio,” says Conrad. “It’s the sound that carries it and makes it feel seamless.”

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10. Keep Doing It Until It Stops

Watching all the Hoonigan gymkhana videos in a single sitting reveals a steady evolution in quality and ambition. The first two, not directed by Conrad, are straightforward and engaging. The third goes to France and annihilates L’Autodrome de Linas, and the fourth whacks on the back lot at Universal Studios. By number five, when Block hits San Francisco, the formula becomes familiar. Gymkhana 6, which runs on a grid course, may be the most technically adept, but it lacks the sheer insanity that made 5’s devastation of San Francisco so compelling. What the Hoonigans have done is set a standard they need to consistently exceed. They’ve invited imitators and, yes, parodies.

So where do they go from here? The Hoonigans are looking for the right sponsor for another gymkhana video. And from Scotto’s hints, it sounds like another ridiculously entertaining rally-car blastoff. It will be smart marketing for some smart company reaching out to a generation that watches most things on its smartphones.

Hoonigan is of this moment. As long as the moment lasts, it’s a hell of a ride.